Close to 400 lost Purple Heart medals have been returned to the recipients and their families since one group helped reunite them.

Purple Hearts Reunited will present lost Purple Hearts to the family of Pfc Jack Carl Kightlinger and seven other military families in a special ceremony Monday at Federal Hall in New York City, where George Washington was sworn in as president.

Kightlinger was killed at 23 on Memorial Day, 1951 in Korea.

His Purple Heart was lost until army veteran Staff Sgt. Kevin Coady obtained the medal and located the Kightlinger family after twelve years of searching.

Bernie Ridgeway, Kightlinger's great niece recalled that Jack was always her grandfather's favorite brother out of their ten siblings.

Both brothers joined the Marine Corps, and Jack was killed in action nine months later.